Judge Allows Closure of Troubled Charter School : Education: District wins right to cut off funds. Campus for dropouts had fallen into financial and administrative disarray.

A Superior Court judge sided with the Los Angeles Unified School District on Wednesday, clearing the way for closure of Edutrain Charter School, a Downtown program catering to dropouts.

Representatives of the independent school, which had fallen into financial and administrative disarray, said they would allow a team of district counselors to enter the school today and begin the process of transferring students.

“Obviously I’m disappointed,” said Winston Doby, chairman of Edutrain’s board of governors. “But I’ve always known this was a possibility, and we have to make the best of this outcome.”

The Edutrain saga has been followed closely by reform advocates nationwide because after a Dec. 5 school board vote to discontinue funding, Edutrain became the first of the independent charter schools to face a forced closure. Charter schools operate largely free of state and local control.

The legal case rested mostly on the issue of who knew what when. In particular, Edutrain’s attorney maintained that the school had been denied due process because it was not advised of the pending closure before the Dec. 5 school board meeting.

Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien found in favor of Los Angeles Unified administrators, who submitted evidence that they had posted a meeting notice listing possible revocation of the charter more than 72 hours before the meeting, as required by law.

But at the legal action’s heart was the more emotional consideration of what will happen to Edutrain’s approximately 140 die-hard students, who were attracted by the school’s nurturing atmosphere.

Los Angeles Unified has promised to try to place them, beginning today, in other programs ranging from continuation schools to independent study. But placement will be difficult because many of the students have previously attended and failed at several public schools, and some have been permanently expelled from the district for incidents such as possession of a weapon.

Also remaining in limbo are the school’s outstanding debts, which top $1 million. They include an estimated $290,000 owed the district because the school overestimated the number of students attending last spring and fall, back pay to teachers who have worked free for the past two months and setup costs fronted by UCLA, where Doby is a vice chancellor.